Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Starred Review Telgemeier's follow-up to Smile (2010) ssibly the only universally embraced graphic novel on the planet fers the same thoughtful perspective while also creating a slightly more mature and complex tone. Raina boards the family minivan traveling from California to Colorado to visit relatives, sharing a charged and eventful trip with her mother, sister, and younger brother. Cleverly, the trip is interspersed with flashbacks that flesh out the emotional background and neatly dovetail with Smile. While the focus of the story explores Raina's combative relationship with her younger sister, Amara, it is in some sense about families themselves, the tensions they breed, the unspoken worries that swirl through households, and the ways an older generation's unintended example echoes through younger generations. This may sound dark and heavy, but it actually exists only as an underlying reality. Telgemeier keeps the surface story popping and zippy, even through the constant sparring between the awkwardly adolescent Raina and her firecracker younger sister, a relationship that will prove profoundly familiar to many readers. Telgemeier's art complements her writing to great effect, offering a cheerful, vivid cartoon simplicity that allows readers to instantly engage even as it leaves room for deeper truths to take hold. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: New York Times best-selling Smile continues to be one of the most widely loved kid's graphic novels in recent history. With a sizable first print run, Telgemeier's publisher is counting on a repeat performance.

School Library Journal Starred Review (Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 4 Up-Telgemeier has returned with a must-have follow-up to Smile (Scholastic, 2010) that is as funny as it is poignant, and utterly relatable for anyone with siblings. This realistic graphic memoir tells the story of Raina; her sister, Amara; and her brother, Will, as they take a road trip with their mother from California to Colorado to join a family reunion. The author's narrative style is fresh and sharp, and the combination of well-paced and well-placed flashbacks pull the plot together, moving the story forward and helping readers understand the characters' point of view. The volume captures preadolescence in an effortless and uncanny way and turns tough subjects, such as parental marriage problems, into experiences with which readers can identify. This ability is what sets Telgemeier's work apart and makes her titles appealing to such a wide variety of readers. Not only does the story relay the road trip's hijinks, but it also touches on what happens with the advent of a new sibling and what it means to be truly sisters. Fans of the graphic novelist's work will be sure to delight in this return to the Telgemeier's family drama.— Krishna Grady, Darien Library, CT

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Fans of Telgemeier's graphic-novel memoir Smile will be smiling through this companion, an often bittersweet but amusing story about Raina's intense, difficult relationship with her younger sister, Amara. Sepia-toned pages mark flashbacks, which fill readers in on the evolution of this battle. Telgemeier's art humorously captures fourteen-year-old Raina's emotions, drawing readers into the road-trip story, which doesn't depend on having read the first book.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this companion to Telgemeier-s Smile, the graphic artist writes about her relationship with her younger sister, Amara, using a summer cross-country trip as narrative scaffolding as she examines the contrast between her childhood wish for a sister and life with a sibling she often can-t fathom-although Amara seems to have uncanny insight into her. -You ever feel like you just don-t fit in?- Raina asks Amara at a family gathering full of contemptuous teenage cousins. -All the time,- Amara replies. -The difference between you and me is, I don-t care.- Like Smile, it-s an alternately poignant and laugh-out-loud funny account of pre-adolescence whose episodes range from small crimes (Raina lying to Amara so she doesn-t have to share her art supplies) to acute crises (Amara-s pet snake Mango on the loose in the family-s VW Microbus). Underneath the immediate problems lies poignant uncertainty about the state of their parents- marriage. Though the artwork draws little attention to itself, Telgemeier-s visual storytelling skills are well-honed, and readers will be left wishing for more. Ages 8-12. Agent: Judith Hansen, Hansen Literary Agency. (Aug.)-